Kalahari will spawn more development

Sunday

Jan 20, 2013 at 12:01 AM

The resort is only the beginning.

MICHAEL SADOWSKI

The resort is only the beginning.

That's what officials from Pocono Manor Investors LP, which owns the land for the planned Kalahari Resort, say about the ambitious future development around Pocono Manor that could include a high-end retail center and a residential development.

Jim Cahill, managing partner of that investment group, said priority No. 1 is to help Kalahari get squared away on the first phase of its construction process. Then his group can turn its attention to developing an adjacent 230 acres along Interstate 380 and routes 314 and 940 in Tobyhanna Township.

On that property is envisioned a high-end retail/restaurant/lifestyle mall-type center, although there are no details on what stores or restaurants would be included.

That land, combined with the land Kalahari Resorts plans to buy, is roughly the same footprint where the proposed Pocono Manor Resort & Casino had been planned.

That $1 billion casino plan, which also included a high-end retail center, died in 2006 when Mount Airy Casino Resort in Paradise Township won a casino license and the Pocono Manor property didn't.

Pocono Manor officials took the plan off the table with local municipalities in 2007.

Since then, there have been inquiries about the land, but Cahill, who didn't want to identify the businesses making the inquiries, said the timing was never right.

"We've had chances to develop the property as a retail center in the past, but we wanted to make sure there was more of an anchor there," he said. "Kalahari is the catalyst to set the tone for that whole project."

All of the future development is predicated on the Kalahari Resorts project, a $350 million indoor/outdoor water park, hotel and convention center proposed on 154 acres of Pocono Manor Investors' property.

The entire property is about 386 acres, Cahill said. The entire lot is contained from Route 940 to Stillwater Creek and from Interstate 380 to about Route 314.

Kalahari also has an option to buy another 50 acres of developable land, company officials have said.

The property would be subdivided, and Pocono Manor Investors would then develop the remaining 230 acres as the retail center.

The retail project has no definitive timetable or price tag. There have been no development plans submitted to either Tobyhanna Township, where most of the property is, or Pocono Township, where the remainder of the lot is.

Cahill estimated the mall would be about two years behind the first phase of Kalahari's project. Kalahari intends to break ground on its project in April and hopes to open in late 2014 or early 2015.

Even further down the road could be the continuation of a stalled housing development in Mount Pocono and Pocono Township.

Pocono Manor Investors had been working on the project for years to build almost 1,100 units of townhouses and condominiums on a little more than 200 acres along the east side of Route 314.

The project currently is in limbo after Mount Pocono Borough Council expressed concern over the amount of traffic it could add to the borough's already crowded roads. The borough never granted preliminary land development plan approval, and the further erosion of the housing market put the project on the back burner.

However, Cahill said that with the Kalahari Resort and a high-end retail center within walking distance, the area could become attractive to build homes again, even if it doesn't build the entire allotment of homes it previously proposed.

Currently, the land envisioned for the retail center is part of Pocono Manor's West Golf Course.

Much of the course already will be bulldozed to make room for the Kalahari project. The retail center would take up much of the rest of the course.

The historic, 101-year-old East Course, however, will not be touched, Cahill said. In fact, he said there are plans to upgrade it.

"We want to make it one of the best courses in the Poconos again," he said.

Together, the project could be responsible for tens of millions of dollars of economic development in the region and bring thousands of jobs along with it.

Kalahari alone said it expects to spur about $18 million annually to the local economy and employ about 1,500 people at full build-out.

"This is going to be a project that is going to make a huge difference in the Poconos," Cahill said. "What we've been looking for is that first step that can really allow other good things to happen. That's Kalahari, and then we want to continue it."